Jackie Cochran and the orphan girl who became the fastest woman alive

Jackie Cochran broke the sound barrier on May 18, 1953, became the first woman to fly Mach 2 in 1964, and retired holding more than 200 speed, distance, and altitude records—more than any pilot in history, man or woman. She did all of this after growing up barefoot and orphaned in the sawmill towns of the Florida panhandle, with no formal education past roughly the third grade.

Who Was Jackie Cochran?

Nobody knows exactly when Jackie Cochran was born—around 1906 to 1910—or what her birth name was. She entered the foster care system in northern Florida as an infant and grew up in crushing poverty. She worked in a cotton mill before reaching her teens and didn’t own a pair of shoes until she was about eight years old.

She talked her way into beauty school, became a hairdresser, and eventually landed a position at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. At a dinner party in the early 1930s, she told Floyd Odlum, one of the wealthiest men in America, that she wanted to start a cosmetics company. His advice: get a pilot’s license so she could cover more territory selling her products.

Cochran earned her pilot’s license in 1932 in roughly three weeks. She later said that the moment she left the ground, she knew she’d been born to fly. Everything before—the poverty, the mills, the foster homes—had just been waiting.

From Cosmetics Mogul to Racing Champion

Cochran did build that cosmetics company, Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics, and it thrived. But flying was never the side project. The cosmetics paid for the airplanes.

By 1934, just two years after learning to fly, she entered the MacRobertson Air Race from England to Australia. Engine trouble over Romania forced her down, but the setback only sharpened her determination.

In 1938, she won the Bendix Trophy Race—the premier coast-to-coast air race in America. There was no women’s division. She flew a Seversky pursuit plane from Burbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, and crossed the finish line ahead of the men. By the time World War II arrived, Cochran held more ratings and records than most airline captains.

How Did Jackie Cochran Create the WASPs?

In 1941, before the United States entered the war, Cochran traveled to England, recruited American women pilots, and brought them to fly with the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), the British organization that ferried military aircraft from factories to frontline bases. She personally flew transport missions across the Atlantic while the Battle of the Atlantic raged and U-boats prowled the shipping lanes.

After the U.S. entered the war, Cochran went directly to General Hap Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, with a radical proposal: train American women to fly military aircraft on domestic missions, freeing male pilots for combat overseas. Arnold approved the plan, and in 1943, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) were established with Cochran as director.

Over 1,000 women earned their wings. They flew every aircraft in the Army’s inventory—bombers, fighters, trainers, and transports. They ferried factory-fresh P-51 Mustangs and P-47 Thunderbolts to embarkation points. They towed targets for aerial gunnery practice, meaning trainee gunners fired live ammunition at sleeves dragged behind their aircraft.

Thirty-eight WASPs died in service. Because they were classified as civilians rather than military personnel, their families received no flag, no death benefits, and in some cases no assistance shipping remains home. Fellow WASPs often pooled money to cover funeral costs.

It took until 1977 for the WASPs to receive retroactive military status—more than thirty years after the program’s deactivation in December 1944.

Breaking the Sound Barrier

After the war, Cochran was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, one of the highest honors available to a civilian. She could have retired comfortably. Instead, she chased the jet age.

She developed a genuine friendship with Chuck Yeager. They flew together and pushed each other. Yeager respected her without qualification, once saying that Jackie Cochran could fly an airplane as well as any pilot he had ever known.

On May 18, 1953, at Edwards Air Force Base, Cochran climbed into a Canadair F-86 Sabre jet fighter. She was at least 43 years old, possibly 47—no one knew her exact age because she had never had a birth certificate. Yeager flew chase in another Sabre on her wing.

She pushed the throttle forward, rolled into a dive, and watched the Mach meter climb past 0.8, 0.9, 0.95—and then past 1.0. Jackie Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier, with the sonic boom rolling across the Mojave Desert floor beneath her.

Mach 2 and Beyond

In 1964, at approximately 58 years old, Cochran flew a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to Mach 2—twice the speed of sound. She set eight speed records in the Starfighter, some of which stood for years. She also reached altitudes above 55,000 feet.

By the time she retired from flying in the late 1960s, her record sheet was staggering:

More than 200 speed, distance, and altitude records
14 Harmon Trophies as outstanding female pilot in the world
Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, and the French Legion of Honor
First woman to make a blind instrument landing
First woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic
First woman to break Mach 1 and Mach 2

What Made Jackie Cochran Extraordinary?

Even at the height of her fame, Cochran spoke openly about those sawmill towns and having no shoes as a child. She said flying gave her something nothing else ever had: a place where the only thing that mattered was whether you could do the job.

Every conventional door was closed to her—poverty, no education, a world that didn’t want women in cockpits. She walked through every one of them as if they weren’t there, never asking permission or waiting for an invitation.

Jackie Cochran died on August 9, 1980, at her ranch in Indio, California. Chuck Yeager was one of her pallbearers.

Key Takeaways

Jackie Cochran rose from an orphaned, shoeless childhood in the Florida panhandle to become the most decorated pilot—male or female—of her era, holding over 200 records.
She created the WASPs in 1943, enabling over 1,000 women to fly every military aircraft type in the U.S. Army inventory during World War II.
She broke the sound barrier on May 18, 1953, in a Canadair F-86 Sabre with Chuck Yeager flying chase, and later reached Mach 2 in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.
38 WASPs died in service without military recognition; it took until 1977 for Congress to grant them retroactive veteran status.
Her story remains a powerful reminder that a pilot’s capability has nothing to do with background, gender, or circumstance.

Sources: Jackie Cochran’s autobiography The Stars at Noon*,* Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien, and the National WASP World War II Museum archives.